Participation in Nigerian Blogosphere: An Assessment of Blog Readers’ Attitudes Towards Linda Ikeji’s Blog

This study investigates blog reading practices of blog readers, selection criteria, perception of blogs and traditional media in terms of credibility, perception of blog readers’ activities in terms of their importance to the blogging activity, blog reading motives and blog readers perception of other blog readers. Social Presence and Uses and Gratification Theories are used to explain blog reading motives and perception. The study adopts a quantitative research methodology and the population are Nigerian students enrolled in Eastern Mediterranean University, a public university in Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in the Fall 2016/2017 semester (N=1394). With a sizeable sample size (n=280), data analysis was carried out descriptively, comparatively and through correlational analysis. Results show that blog readers read all new entries whenever the launch of the URL of the blog. Blog readers select news based of the following criteria; education, information, tragedy, entertainment, gossip, comedy. The study shows that most blog readers believes that the blog is more credible than traditional media. Blog readers believe that they are important to the blogging activity. Following Uses and Gratification Theory, majority of the blog readers read blogs for intrinsic motivation. Following Social Presence Theory, this study found that most blog readers think that most commenters use a fake user ID to comment.